Tuesday, August 14, 2007

And reading

We printed out the CBeebies schedule, at Lyddie's request. She found it for herself online and wanted me to help her to read it. She's done this for 2 days running now. Schedules and times are very important to this child, and this is at the root of much of her motivation. Also, she feels the need to be independent, so she picks up the sheet when she wants to check the times of her favourite programme and works out the letter sounds until she knows the answer.

23 Comments:

Wow! Clever Lyddie! I remember being so excited by being able to follow written instructions like that - so much independence! My mum used to write out how to use the video player step-by-step so we could get up in the morning and put it on on our own :-)

It's lovely isn't it :)At that sort of age, AJ used to love it if I left her little notes all over the house for her to find and read. Another favourite still is to make a post-box and 'send' letters to each other.

sorry nothing beats being able to read,, school,, education,,, work... being able to earn a decent living ,,, you are living in cloud cuckoo land... how do yu expect your children to get work without qualifications,,,,, I work in Recruitment,,, I have seen so many application forms binned from very bright teenagers as they do not have any qualifications,,, by the way,,, if you are a single parent ,,,who keeps you all,,, us the tax payers i presume,,, the 'normal' people who you despise so much,,, come on ,,, get a life,,, go to work,,, get in the real world,, or is that not an option.,, would you rather slob around living off the state, having umpteen kids ???? you all make me sick,,, ,my kids have gone through state education. worked hard, got very good jobs and to be honest they wonder why when there are people like you living off the state, lazy, and spending all day doing senseless blog!! you would command more respect if you got a job and paid into the system you so despise

1. My blog doesn't take all day. It takes about half an hour every other day. What makes you think it takes all day?2. I don't despise anyone. What makes you think I do?3. I do some work for money. What makes you think I don't?4. What makes you think my children aren't planning on doing any qualifications?5. I don't slob anywhere any time. What makes you think I do?6. My (older) kids went through state education - then I gave up my paid, respected job which I much enjoyed to save my [suicidal] older son's life by home educating him. That's all the respect I need from anyone, thanks. 7. What makes you think I'm lazy? I work harder than a lot of people with full-time jobs that I know. 8. Who rattled your cage anyway? 9. If you're so busy, hard-working and industrious, what are you doing reading this blog? Get off the PC! Go get some real work done!;-)

Anonymous, may i ask why you're hiding behind a cowardly shield of bad grammar and shockingly untrue assumptions? - "Yu" and your state education are impressive, really! i mean that from the bottom of my extremely sarcastic heart.

But yeah, vague generalization on your behalf! Naughty naughty.

Also, she has a paid job in a national magazine, and you think she sits writing *all* day? You know she can do more than a word an hour.

This "we the taxpayers " thing always bothers me. What IF Gill has a huge extended family of successful taxpayers and has done for centuries and she has paid extensively into the system previously and is the only person in her family to ever have the need to claim back the benefits that they were all entitled to..and anonymous and his family are few and all their ancestors lived on benefits? The snapshot of today tells you little about such a situation. Should we start weighing up who is entitled to what based on that? It's a benefit..if you qualify , then you are entitled to it. It's not illegal to be a single mother or unemployed. Lets hope that anonymous is never down on their luck and needs to claim what he/she is entitled to!

I'm starting to realise this little flurry of anonymous comments I'm getting this week is connected - possibly an extended family facing some difficult issues and decisions.

If I'm right about this, then I wish them all the best in reaching a happy outcome.

I'd also like to say that I know quite a few single parents who have home educated successfully, as I do, on very low budgets. They've even done things like university degrees at the same time. OU and home ed go very well together. But it's also possible to work from home, of course, and with childcare help, out of the home too.

Home educated children by and large tend to grow up healthy and happy. Work comes easy to them and they don't seem to need much by way of policing and medical care. If you think that home educating your children is the best thing , perhaps because school isn't working out for them, there's no shame in taking a reduction in income to do so.

It was one of the best things my family ever did. Money does not matter as much as happiness. You only need enough to pay bills and buy food. We haven't been able to afford holidays, for e.g., but we haven't needed them because we're so happy at home.

Good for you, Gill. You manage to keep this place mainly peaceful.We've experienced similar anonymous verbal attacks when we dared stick our heads above the parapet in Holland. It can be hurtful, I find, but at the same time there is absolutely no reason to take it personal. After all, the way people choose to communicate says something about who they are and how they use their freedom to choose.

To anonymous I would like to say: Trying to hurt someone else doesn't lessen your own pain. And, even though it may not always appear to be that way, in the end you really do have the freedom to choose not to do things that make you feel sick. Feel free to try it. It will make for a better world. For all of us.

Its nice to see that anonymous is well educated and that his/her tax monies have led to them being able to spell and punctuate a sentence properly.

But hey, "anonymous", you say you work in recruitment? You of all people should know that its initiative that major employers look for these days, because the "uniform" qualifications mean nothing apart from blandness.

Gill said: "If you think that home educating your children is the best thing , perhaps because school isn't working out for them, there's no shame in taking a reduction in income to do so."

Yep, that's certainly what we've done. DH and I are both freelancers, but we only take on a select few projects, so that one of us is always at home with the girls. We've both turned down much more secure positions that would have prevented us from being at home so much. We work very hard at our chosen professions, and I think it's great for the girls to see that, and we try and involve them in our work as much as possible. We have quite a "high tech" lifestyle, because of the equipment needed for our work. But other stuff that some 'mainstream' families seem to spend a lot on (holidays, endless refurnishing, clothes, outings, parents' social life etc.) we have compromised on .... we're more than happy to buy second hand clothes, furniture and toys that last well, have only one car, and stay at home for our entertainment!

Yes I agree that it's definitely important to balance work and life. My hope is that the children find work that they really enjoy, through being given the time to follow their own interests to find out where these lead. This is already happening with the older ones. I'd hate to think they might end up working full-time in jobs they hated, when there's so much more to life than that.

I work in Recruitment,,, I have seen so many application forms binned from very bright teenagers as they do not have any qualifications,,,

Well Mr or Mrs Anonymous what makes you think HE children cannot get qualifications? For your info 5 of my children have diplomas before the age you can do them in "the system" and my older two are both doing degrees, also 2 years early.